National

Vic teacher action to continue over pay

Thousands of Victorian teachers have joined a rally in a Melbourne stadium to demand higher pay.Source:
AAP

MORE disruption is set to affect Victoria's schools with teachers voting to continue their industrial campaign, while the government says progress is being made on a pay deal.

Hundreds of schools were closed on Thursday due to a 24-hour strike as an estimated 10,000 teachers and school staff decked out in red attended a rally in Melbourne before marching to Parliament House.

School staff packed Hisense Arena and spilled out onto the lawns as they voted to continue their campaign, with half-day regional rolling stoppages planned from second term and continuing 38-hour week bans.

But a move to introduce 48-hour rolling stoppages during the Naplan testing period was voted down.

Australian Education Union Victorian president Meredith Peace said the union was prepared to negotiate with the government.

"Over $2 billion of cuts and broken promises is what they've done in two years of government and they refuse to do a deal with the staff of our students in public schools," Ms Peace told reporters.

"It's not good enough. It's time for the government to come to the table with a fair and reasonable offer."

But the government said the planning of further industrial action is premature while the parties are still negotiating, with talks scheduled next week.

Minister Responsible for the Victorian Teaching Profession Peter Hall says he believes good progress has been made on negotiations, which have been under way for 18 months.

Mr Hall said the government and union had met six times in the last two weeks and another two meetings were scheduled for next week.

"I think the gap between what the union wants and what the government wants is narrowing and I think it is possible we can find a solution to this, but marching in the streets of Melbourne isn't going to help," he told AAP.

The union wants the government to honour its pre-election promise to make Victorian teachers the best paid and is against performance-based pay.

It revised its offer to the government in November, offering 4.2 per cent per year over three years, but it failed to resolve the dispute.

The government lost a federal court bid for an injunction to stop Thursday's action and Mr Hall has not ruled out taking further court action to prevent future strikes.

"That's a decision we will take after the meetings that are planned for the next week," he said.

The government said schools that remained open had supervision arrangements in place.

Premier Ted Baillieu said the strike added nothing to negotiations and just caused students, schools and families disruption.

The education department said 331 schools reported they had told parents students were not required to attend, but remained open for those that did.

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